


Potential

by SilverDagger



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 21:30:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5349197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/pseuds/SilverDagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young Sephiroth meets the President for the first time, and finds himself far from impressed.</p><p>(Written for the prompt <i>a wise devil knows their purpose under heaven's law</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Potential

Sephiroth stands in front of the President's desk, in the center of a wide room at the top of a tower with windows all around. He doesn't like it here. He prefers a wall at his back and a weapon at hand, or the safety of the small room he has been given to call his own, but he knows, because he has been informed and because it is obvious, that it would not be a good idea to appear timid before the President.

Doctor Hojo does not need any more budget cuts. Doctor Hojo needs a success.

Sephiroth does not care what Doctor Hojo needs, but it will be better for him, in the long run, if he acquits himself well here.

The President leans forward, hands clasped in front of him, and says, "how is training finding you, my boy?"

"Very well, sir," Sephiroth says. After a second, he ventures to add, "I find the challenge enjoyable."

"No trouble with the other recruits?"

"Not anymore."

That answer seems to please the President, who nods to himself and says, "Do you understand your what mission will be with us, then?"

Sephiroth salutes, hand to heart, as he has been instructed.

"To protect the Company's interests, in Midgar and overseas," he says. His voice is clipped, no emotion, no hesitation. He speaks as one well-trained, and the President smiles. There's something oily about that smile, slick on the surface and rancid underneath.

Sephiroth can think of seventeen different ways to kill him. He divides each into small, discrete steps, then envisions the sequence of the messiest of them forwards and backwards and forwards again. It calms the nerves.

He won't, of course. He can almost hear his mother's voice whispering patience in a language too old for words, woven through the ever-present hum and murmur of the Planet. He wishes he were still young enough to believe it.

"So indeed," the President says, with an avid gleam in his eye. "If everything I've heard is true, I expect you'll impress us all."

Sephiroth nods. They'll be sending him to Wutai soon. He knows what he'll have to do there. It doesn't bother him, and he isn't afraid.

"Yes sir," he says. "I think I will."


End file.
